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January 1996, Week 5

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Subject:
From:
Dandrade Kendall <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 28 Jan 1996 02:09:00 EST
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January 28, 1996
 
Having just watched _Belle de Jour_, in a video version, I wonder if there is,
or once was, an alternative ending for this film.  My "evidence" is very weak:
 
     the blurb on the box says that her husband must decide what to do about
         his knowledge that his wife worked in a whorehouse.
     my memory of a contemporary review in a popular magazine (probably
         _Time_) was that the reviewer claimed that she told her husband
         herself and then simply walked out clearly having nowhere to go.
 
Since neither source is especially reliable, and the second is weakened still
further by the filter of memory, we may simply have yet further evidence of
their unreliability.  But it is interesting that they agree in the sense of
claiming that something happens after the husband learns that his wife worked
in a whorehouse, that someone did something.  Whereas in the version I saw,
there was only a "cut" to another fantasy sequence.  Does anyone have any
information about any alternative endings, even ones which may have been
filmed, or even just contemplated, but never released?
 
 
That's question 1.
My other query is:  What is this film about?
Let me suggest an odd answer:  It is about what it is about.  My intended
contrast is with a mimetic theory where the work of art is about what it
imitates.  Perhaps Bunuel's films are closer to "pure" works of art.
 
A parallel may help.  Perhaps some Romantic music is about that which it is
the story of, often what is suggested in the title of the piece.  Surely there
is also music which tells no story, paints no scene, does not even set or
explore some mood; it is just music.  Of this music, we might say that it is
about nothing, or about itself, or about what it is about, treating all three
statements as at least roughly equivalent.  (Or we might say that it is about
music, generally about a specific class of musical compositions, often fairly
recent.  On that model, the new composition is a comment on, and development
of, some part of the musical tradition.)
 
In that sense, are at least some of Bunuel's films (more like) pure film, as
opposed to films which are more the telling of a story?  _An Andelusian Dog_
seems less about what happens on screen than, say, _The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance_.  On the other hand, _Los Olvidados_ is clearly about urban poverty,
emphasizing its terribleness.  Is it reasonable to say that _Belle de Jour_ is
closer to _An Andelusian Dog_ than to _Los Olvidados_?
 
Kendall D'Andrade
 
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